The 2021-22 academic year was profoundly challenging for California schools. Eight critical issues emerged as serious threats to student learning, the operation of schools, and even the very institution of public education: (1) gun violence, (2) politicization of and support for public education, (3) controversy over what is taught in schools, (4)…

The 2021-22 academic year was profoundly challenging for California schools. Eight critical issues emerged as serious threats to student learning, the operation of schools, and even the very institution of public education: (1) gun violence, (2) politicization of and support for public education, (3) controversy over what is taught in schools, (4)…

This is the 24th in a series of annual publications. Beginning with the 2020 edition, this report has been redesigned with the intention of increasing its usability for a wider audience. This report does so by highlighting selected findings from 23 indicators on various school crime and safety topics. It first examines different types of student…

The Students-as-Partners (SaP) paradigm has been widely recognized for its enrichment of pedagogy and research, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning; in a time of acute disruption to higher education, the SaP model may further provide key insights into the adaptation of high impact teaching practices, although the changing…

February 14 marked the 1-year anniversary of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and April 20 marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine. Much progress has been made over the last 20 years in the understanding of threat assessment, crisis preparedness, and the importance of increasing…

This essay considers 12 books of contemporary young adult fiction, published in the United States between 2000 and 2016, with plots directly related to rampage school shootings. It compares the shooters' psychological types, ages, races, genders, roles, motives and the narrative points of view in the books with dominant cultural scripts for…

This qualitative study explored the factors that affected King Unified School District's (KUSD's) successful attainment of their goal to instruct 100% of their administrators on their comprehensive safety plan, with a specific focus on active shooter violence prevention. Documents from the district were analyzed, and administrators from both the…

Gun control is a highly debated and divisive social issue. In recent years, this issue has been thrust into the academic arena with the advent of campus carry legislation and policies. Researchers have taken up the task of attempting to better understand the attitudes of those most affected by campus carry legislation -- the campus community. The…

Concerns for student safety are a commonly cited reason for the presence of police in schools. But as the nation grapples with the appropriate roles and responsibilities of police more broadly, the time is right to shine a light on what we know about the effects of police in schools. This brief summarizes the research related to this question.…

This report examines findings from the 2020 PACE/USC Rossier poll of California voters. The poll represents the views of 2,000 registered California voters across a range of topics from early childhood education to higher education. Based on these results, the authors have identified five key findings: (1) There is growing pessimism about the…

This paper describes the construction and descriptive analysis of a data set of United States school shooting events. Three hundred forty-three shooting events are included, spanning 175 years of United States educational history. All levels of US educational institution are included. Events are included when a firearm is discharged, regardless of…

The federal Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) was introduced into law as part of the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. The federal law requires states funded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to have a state law in effect that requires local education agencies (LEAs) to expel students for firearm offenses for a…

Three weeks after the February 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed and 17 more injured, the Florida state legislature passed a bill, which among other things, designated two new roles for each school district: a director of safe schools and a mental health coordinator. These…

One of the most pressing concerns on college campuses today is student safety. To date, nine states have passed Campus Carry legislation and more states may follow. Texas was the eighth state to pass Campus Carry legislation. Specifically, in the 2015 Legislative session, the Texas Legislature voted to allow License to Carry (LTC) holders to carry…

This article focuses on the topic of campus crime reporting, particularly students' stated likelihood of reporting crime incidents to the college public safety department, municipal police, or a member of the library staff. The survey vignette design involves experimental manipulation of several situational variables in line with the unresponsive…